When is the NDA on the ATI 9700 up?

[glen]

Tonight at midnight?

 

[apoppin]

Is there a NDA? I thought everyone was waiting for the parts to ship from ATI . . .



but then, maybe I am naive.


It's just that I hadn't heard of an NDA at Rage.com and thought the reviewers were waiting on final hardware and drivers. At any rate, the 9700 is scheduled to hit the vendors Aug 26 - it can't be long.

 

[wfbberzerker]

dont think there was an nda... considering all the benchmarks and articles that are up about it...

 

[SocrPlyr]

there is an NDA, b/c ATI would only let the reviews compare, but not give actual numbers... thus like Anand's where all the ti4600s are 1.00....

Josh

 

[Mday]

there is an NDA, the 9700 gets officially announced monday, but there is no information on the NDA, it could just state whatever date monday is, or it could set a specific time...

 

[apoppin]

Originally posted by: Mday
there is an NDA, the 9700 gets officially announced monday, but there is no information on the NDA, it could just state whatever date monday is, or it could set a specific time...

So, does anyone really know?

 

[Adul]

Originally posted by: apoppin

Originally posted by: Mday
there is an NDA, the 9700 gets officially announced monday, but there is no information on the NDA, it could just state whatever date monday is, or it could set a specific time...

So, does anyone really know?

anand knows

 

[Lint21]

Dunno about the NDA, but Gamespot accidentily broke it, I think. In their current "Power Rigs" article, Alienware shipped them a PC with a 9700 in it, and they showed benches of it compared to the same machine with a 4600. ATI must have contacted them about it, because the 9700 benches aren't up anymore.

If I remember the numbers, the 9700 pretty much whooped up on everything else, at least at high resolutions. About a 25% inprovement at 1600x1200... considerably less at 1024x768.

 

[ElFenix]

i know the cost and when ingram expects to get them... and it looks like they're getting quite a few...

 

[Barrei]

Ati 9700 pro is already out in Canada for 600 canadian dollars.

 

[Budman]

Originally posted by: Barrei
Ati 9700 pro is already out in Canada for 600 canadian dollars.

No it's not,the card being made in Canada has nothing to do with who gets them first,USA usualy gets them before we do.

 

[apoppin]

Originally posted by: Barrei
Ati 9700 pro is already out in Canada for 600 canadian dollars.

How much is that in real money?



If the card is already out, why haven't seen reviews? Maybe someone can answer this - How long does it take to do the benchmarking through the finished writing for a major article like this? My guess is 2 days (at an absolute minimum) to 3 days (or longer).

 

[ai42]

link

You guys probbably want to read my experience from QuakeCon... lots of good info which I think is technically still under NDA (but I didn't sign nothing so I'm under no such obligation) '

EDIT: fixed link apparently I can spell "forums" heh I'm a subscriber I shoudn't have to worry about such things.

 

[apoppin]

Your link didn't work, so I searched under your name - HERE

Tom's hardware also has a great article on Quakecon - evidently Doom III won't need anything more than the 8500 or Geforce 3 (although all the demos were ran on the 9700).

 

[ai42]

Tom's hardware also has a great article on Quakecon - evidently Doom III won't need anything more than the 8500 or Geforce 3 (although all the demos were ran on the 9700).

To your doom 3 comment.... I seriously doubt it. I don't doubt that GF4 4600s and Radeon 8500s CAN run Doom 3, but I'm gonna bet not very well. The Doom 3 demo is SCAREY I want to see it another dozen times, I'm sure a pirate video will crop up sooner or later. It is very very very impressive BTW. All rendered in real time by a 9700 and you can tell that the 9700 was having a little trouble with it too, there were a few points where the motion froze for 1/3-1/4 of a second.

 

[Adul]

damn i wihs i could have gone to quakecon. Viper22 supposed went has well. I wonder what he has to share .

Has for choppiness, i think it is still a little early to say that Doom 3 will not run on a 8500. It is still in beta state if not worse

 

[mchammer187]

Originally posted by: Adul
damn i wihs i could have gone to quakecon. Viper22 supposed went has well. I wonder what he has to share .

Has for choppiness, i think it is still a little early to say that Doom 3 will not run on a 8500. It is still in beta state if not worse

I agree WC3 from beta to retail was a lot easier on the video card GF2's could not handle it @ 800x600 pre retail but know it will do 1024x768 with a few details off pretty smoothly

 

[apoppin]

Originally posted by: ai42

Tom's hardware also has a great article on Quakecon - evidently Doom III won't need anything more than the 8500 or Geforce 3 (although all the demos were ran on the 9700).

To your doom 3 comment.... I seriously doubt it. I don't doubt that GF4 4600s and Radeon 8500s CAN run Doom 3, but I'm gonna bet not very well. The Doom 3 demo is SCAREY I want to see it another dozen times, I'm sure a pirate video will crop up sooner or later. It is very very very impressive BTW. All rendered in real time by a 9700 and you can tell that the 9700 was having a little trouble with it too, there were a few points where the motion froze for 1/3-1/4 of a second.

Well let me open your eyes:


From Toms - Interview With Tim Willis Of id Software - Lead Designer / Program Manager for Doom III

Doom III is targeted mainly at the GeForce 3 series cards and the Radeon 8500 cards. Other cards will be able to run the software, but of course the graphics will be scaled down from those cards on the target platform.

Due to the complex nature of the graphics fidelity that we are trying to present in Doom III, the game is more video card dependent than CPU dependent.

80MB textures are not uncommon for Doom III

 

[apoppin]

John Carmack Keynote Address - Quakecon 2002 from Toms again

All of the pieces are in place for Doom III, I am now finally starting to see things pay off. The core project development was started as soon as Quake III was wrapped up. We are already working with 3rd parties on the engine and the technology, so you can expect new titles to be introduced using the Doom III technology soon.

The question is, where do we go from here? The next logical step is to develop an engine that is designed exclusively around the technology that you will find in the new technology video cards such as the ATI Radeon 9700 and the Nvidia NV30, which has not been released yet. The sad part about this, of course, is that we might miss an intermediate step, but I think that is what is going to happen.

. . .


Doom III will feature six custom back ends to take advantage of the specific features of the video cards. Currently this will only apply to cards from ATI, NVidia, and 3D Labs. Maybe at some point we might do something with Matrox and SIS cards, but for the moment that has not been determined. The Matrox and SIS cards will be able to run the game, but because of the lack of a custom back end, we will not be able to take advantage of the special specific feature of these cards.

Most older video cards will be supported via a fall back path, but of course you are going to lose some of the graphics fidelity. . . .

I still think that there is a 100X improvement possible in video card technology over the next several years.

I believe that there is really no reason that we can't do Pixar quality rendering on the new breed of video card accelerators, such as the ATI Radeon 9700 and the NV30, once it is released. All of the Doom III game demos that you saw in the Doom theater were done on the ATI Radeon 9700.

. . .

The Doom III engine will be the engine technology for the next five years once it is released. Once Doom III is completed, I will start working on the next technology and there is a good chance that you will be able to use the same developed content on the next generation engine technology beyond Doom III.

So . . . the Radeon 8500 will be sufficient for Doom III. The NEXT Gen of games (read: 3-5 years) will be able to take fulladvantage of the new cards - the NV30 and the R300.

 

[jm0ris0n]

Ummm...if there was a nda, it was sure as hell broken at quakecon!!!

They had a beta 9700 running in a shuttle mini comp. This card is freakin tiny! About as big as the 7500, and much smaller than my ti4400. boards were fire engine red I'll get my film developed tomorrow and share pics of the card for all!

 

[Anand Lal Shimpi]

Don't bother staying up, but get up early tomorrow morning and it'll be just like Christmas (or something)

Take care,
Anand

 

[LukFilm]

Dammit.

 

[GTaudiophile]

Originally posted by: Anand Lal Shimpi
Don't bother staying up, but get up early tomorrow morning and it'll be just like Christmas (or something)

Take care,
Anand

Someone is burning the midnight oil! Christmas, eh? Well, if it were bad news, he'd say, "like Valentines day."

 

[apoppin]

Originally posted by: Anand Lal Shimpi
Don't bother staying up, but get up early tomorrow morning and it'll be just like Christmas (or something)

Take care,
Anand

Thank-you! . . . I am really looking forward to your articl . . . err, Xmas (or something).

Someone is burning the midnight oil! Christmas, eh? Well, if it were bad news, he'd say, "like Valentines day."

I suspect it will be like Valentine's Day - the Massacre - for the competing video cards.

 

[legsp]

Anand, please publish in the NDA any R300 All-In-Wonder news, specs, anything you might have learned and are able to tell us. Thanks.